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Ways You’re Hurting the Relationship With Your Adult Child
And It’s Time For You To Realize It
When our children are young and we are in the midst of shuttling them to soccer games, dance recitals, and playdates the far-off future of a relationship with them as adults can seem like fiction. We don’t spend (waste?) time thinking about what that might look like, and we hardly have the energy to plan for what those relationships might be. But sure enough, the time comes before long that we, and our children, have navigated their way through high school and into the world of adulthood while we were busy making dinners and cheering them on.
In a rush of days, our relationship with them changes dramatically. It’s not just the stroke of a birthday that transitions them into adulthood and we can flip a switch from guiding their decisions with a heavy hand to leaving them to fend for themselves, either.
There is a stark difference between “parenting” and “being a parent,” and as our children become adults, it is increasingly important to ‘be” a parent as the need to actively parent them becomes obsolete. Parenting, the verb, is the act of training and nurturing a child that we are teaching to become an adult. Being a parent, on the other hand, is when we’ve switched to a role that, if done well, encompasses friendship, loyalty, love, and kindness. Being a…
